While a great deal of the focus on the euthanasia front is looking at Belgium at the moment, it is worth remembering that The Netherlands created patient killing by doctors long before their near neighbours.

What is really going on in Belgium? The longer the practice of euthanasia develops both in Belgium and in the Netherlands, the more obvious it becomes that the illusion of regulatory control, ethical behaviour and limitation on who qualifies blurs and collapses in upon itself.

In 2012, at the tenth anniversary of the Dutch euthanasia laws, Eric van Wijlick, policy maker at the Royal Dutch Society of Doctors (KNMG) lamented that, “Euthanasia has become the central point of conversation between a doctor and a patient who is suffering when it should be seen as a "last resort"